crazyfeet

Recipes 

sooooooooo i am not sure if i am screwed or not

what do i need to look for to tell if my batch is bad?

basically i made 10gals of mead.. bottled 5 and left 5 in the primary.. never transferred. i was checkin on it.. checking on it.. my goal was to go 1 year...

well its been about 2 months since my last check and the airlock is 100% dry

just looking to see what i need to do to tell if i can drink this stuff?

nitack

Recipes 

Take a sip. If it has oxidized you'll know. If not, then replace your water in the airlock and set some google calendar reminders.

Inner10

Recipes 

If you took 5gal out of a 10 gal container that's a lot of airspace to age with...a recipe for oxidation in it's self. Taste it, if it seems fine then transfer to a 5gallon demijohn and toss in some sulphites.

tyzippers

Recipes 

Agreed. First, taste to see if it's been oxidized. If not, you could simply cover the carboy with sterilized foil for aging. That's what I do with my Belgians that I age. Although I don't mess with them by removing any beer so as to not disturb the CO2 layer. What I do is run a flame over one side of my foil and then form it over the carboy opening.

Inner10

Recipes 

Many of my wines have gotten a natural cork stopper instead of an airlock for ageing.

shelly_belly

Recipes 

I did something similar and now I have 5 gallons of delicious caramel apple mead vinegar.

nitack

Recipes 

Might be an interesting marinade for pork loin...

SagamoreAle

Recipes 

Like others have said, the only way to know is to try it.

If you decide to keep it, rack to a 5 gal carboy and add some metabisulfite to the water in in the airlock. Carboys breath as the temperature in the room changes. This ensures that there is enough metabisulfite in the headspace, scavenging any oxygen that will make it into the carboy.

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